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“Gladthat’sover with,” he said Sunday evening as they stood in his kitchen, alone for the first time since Thursday night. They were sharing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, eating right out of the container with two big spoons.
It had been that kind of weekend. No sleep. No real meals. Tons of stress.
Actually, he’d kind of liked it.
She ruefully shook her head, licking off the spoon, her pink tongue creating streaks in the ice cream—and a blast of heat in Mick’s body. So much for going back to a cordial relationship. Right now, he wanted to dribble Chunky Monkey all over Caroline’s naked body, watch it melt and then lick off every bit of it. Before proceeding to hot monkey sex.
“Just beginning,” she said. “But at least we’re on our way. The show will have a dynamite opening with the triple homicide.”
“Who’s the killer?”
She shook her head. “Can’t tell.”
“I’d originally thought it was going to be that guy with the Southern accent who said he’s a farmer. His fingernails were too long to be a farmer.”
“Well, it’s obviously not him since he’s been knocked out.”
Knocked out, knocked off. Whatever. The farmer, along with two other people from his four-member team, had been eliminated from the game since they were the last to find the three bodies in Sophie’s house. Only Whittington, the college professor, had survived from that foursome because he’d solved the most clues during the day. That hadn’t surprised him too much. He’d thought from the moment he’d met him that there was more to the man than met the eye.
Caroline continued to lick her ice cream, her visible appreciation for it almost making her look like she was having incredible sex. Or he could just be seeing incredible sex because that’s what he’d been thinking about nonstop for days.
“So, are we going to talk about it?” she asked, continuing to lick her ice cream, but now staring at him over the spoon. Her eyes were knowing, as if she could read what he’d been thinking. And had been thinking it, too.
“Talk about it?”
She nodded. “I spent all day Friday hating you. But I have to admit it, Mick, if you hadn’t been there on the set yesterday and today, things would have been a lot more difficult.”
That was an understatement. For some reason, it pleased him to know that Caroline had admitted she needed him. If only to help the writers get the layout of the town. Or to cajole extras into behaving. Or, as he had this morning, to get on the phone and have the local shipping company open up on a Sunday so Caroline could get some much-needed packages delivered.
Yeah. She’d needed him. For more than just what she’d needed from him Thursday night.
“So, I figure we’d better clear the air about what happened the other night. Because I have a proposition for you.”
His mind instantly went into the gutter. “A proposition?”
She tsked but didn’t look offended. “Not that kind of proposition. I want you to work with us while we’re here in Derryville. Be a sort of…liaison to the town. But that’ll only work if you and I can come to some sort of peaceful arrangement.”
“We’ve been peaceful.”
“Okay, how aboutcordialarrangement? Not going from lust to hate and back again every other hour.”
He couldn’t keep the intensity from his voice as he replied, “I’ve never hated you.”
She slowly lowered her spoon, leaving it sticking out of the ice cream container on the counter. “Not even when you had your back tattooed…for thesecondtime?”
Knowing Caroline as he did, he figured she’d resent it if he acknowledged that hint of hurt in her voice. He didn’t know which surprised him more—that he heard that note of vulnerability, or that he’d ever had the power to hurt her to begin with. But apparently, he had. He’d hurt her long after she’d left, when he’d tried to remove her importance from his life by removing her significance on his body.
“I didn’t hate you,” he finally said. “Some people cauterize their wounds. I tried to get rid of mine with needles and ink.”
Her eyes widened. Without saying so, it was clear she understood what he meant. That she’d wounded him. Something she’d probably never believed she could do.
Treading even deeper into dangerous territory, she asked, “What did you do after I left, Mick? I know you didn’t graduate. What happened?”
The ice cream was feeling heavy in his stomach. Or maybe that was his past causing the discomfort. In any case, he didn’t particularly want to discuss it. Instead, he said, “About the other night, you really think we can work together, live together and, uh, forget about what happened?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
He gave her a triumphant smile.
